


the places where the internet could not go

by templeofshame



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 Era (Phandom), Introspection, M/M, Pre-Meeting, anxiety but no angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 22:32:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17394923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeofshame/pseuds/templeofshame
Summary: They’ve just hung up on Skype, excitement crashing quickly into a wired sort of exhaustion that isn’t leading to sleep any time soon. He’s ordered the tickets. Actual, real, not-inexpensive tickets that will take him to Manchester and, unfortunately, back. Dan hopes Phil’s still on that wave of excitement. He hopes Phil doesn’t understand this dark, sinking feeling.





	the places where the internet could not go

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to @waveydnp and @insectbah!

Dan can’t tell anyone he’s afraid.

He can’t tell his mum. Any sign of hesitation would set off the maternal alarm bells he’s been fighting to hold back. She believes in intuition, and fear could be a warning, especially when she’s looking for one. His dad would, at best, think it’s funny. To be afraid, not that the guy from the internet is a cannibal, but that they won’t, what, click? Or that they will, too well? Dan can hear the laughter, devastating and completely without ill intent. He can’t exactly tell Erin, or any of the friends who claim not to be taking sides. He couldn’t explain it to his nan and there is a zero percent chance that Adrian would understand at all.

And Phil… They’ve just hung up on Skype, excitement crashing quickly into a wired sort of exhaustion that isn’t leading to sleep any time soon. He’s ordered the tickets. Actual, real, not-inexpensive tickets that will take him to Manchester and, unfortunately, back. Dan hopes Phil’s still on that wave of excitement. He hopes Phil doesn’t understand this dark, sinking feeling. And even if Phil does understand, he might be hoping the same thing for Dan, might not want to know. Fear shouldn’t have a part in this. But fear’s always a part of Dan.

*

From pretty early on, they’d talked about “when we meet.” Like it was inevitable and a distant dream at the same time, always “someday.” Sometimes they’d joke about gaming together, sharing food or hugs, a “don’t make me come down there.” But that was just bants. 

On his own, lying awake in bed or zoning out of his parents’ dinner conversation, he’d think about logistical realities, about whether he’d saved up enough for a train ticket, where he’d sleep, what Phil’s parents would say. He wondered if Phil did that too, if the desire to see those bants through lay unspoken between them, or just in Dan’s head. He’d looked up ticket prices; Phil had asked how long it’d take to walk. A joke didn’t mean there wasn’t something real underneath, but Phil didn’t ask or offer. Then again, Dan was still working up the guts himself.

For all his daydreamy planning, he only knew one thing for sure: he didn’t want to see Phil in Wokingham. Phil didn’t belong in Dan’s old life. Phil was new and exciting and real in a way Dan never wanted Wokingham to touch. Wokingham decided who Dan was long ago, but Dan still had the chance to be different, better, for Phil. So he’d go to Rawtenstall, if Phil would have him. He’d have to wait for the right moment, when Phil was being fond and reassuring, when he’d want to say yes, or at least not to say no.

That’s what Dan thought. But Dan’s always lived in the battleground between overthinking and impulsivity, and waiting for the right time was easier thought than done. Instead, it was a moment when his own feelings were threatening to boil over, just watching Phil empathetically recount the tiny adventures of his day. Dan felt it all: the sharp silence of his house; the warmth of Phil’s face, even dimly lit by his laptop screen; the fondness bubbling up that could just be content but instead, turned to longing for more.

“I want to come see you,” he’d whispered in the dark, a beat after Phil stopped talking. “For real.” Dan could feel the words beating in his ears, and they felt like all he could possibly say. Phil was the most real part of his life, and Dan needed to be _there_ , sooner or later. Because he wasn’t going to let Phil go, and if they were going to be… best friends, and whatever, forever, there couldn’t always be screens and distance between them.

For a moment, Phil’s face seemed to drop all expression, and Dan felt his stomach turn to stone. Phil really saw him, that was one of the things about Phil. But Dan was suddenly remembering why that’s not always a good thing, to be seen when he’s still an 18-year-old mess who can’t even keep his hair fully straight when it’s humid or a shitty retail job for long. Who can’t quite put a word to the way he’s felt about guys a couple times, or what he hopes might be happening with Phil. If Phil saw him for who he was, why would he want to keep Dan as anything more than an internet joke of a friend?

“Do you?” Phil whispered back.

“If…” Dan started. He’d satisfied the physical need to say it, and now he could backpedal.

But then he saw Phil’s face, open and earnest and _eager_. Waiting for that “if” like a quest, like a mission to fulfill. Phil was seeing something, different from what Dan saw in himself. Something maybe Dan could be. 

For a moment, Dan felt oddly powerful. “No if.” Maybe the sudden strength of conviction would give Phil whiplash, but Dan hoped it would just push the doubt away and maybe be a bit contagious. “I just want to.”

*

Part of Dan wants to get Phil back on Skype, straightaway, before he maybe succeeds at sleeping where Dan’s failing. It’s almost instinctive at this point. There are times he just wants to sink into his own darkness, but when in doubt, he wants to talk to Phil. Maybe seeing Phil, seeing Phil see him, would remind Dan that it’ll be fine. He can’t look Phil in the eye and not want to meet him. But Dan’s not got an excuse to call back when they hung up to sleep. And that’s not what the fear is anyway.

The problem is, things with Phil are pretty perfect and maybe pretty delicate. It’s hard to know, really, how delicate things are without breaking them, and as much as Dan wants to be near Phil, what if a grain of sand gets in the gears and it never works quite the same?

Dan knows how he feels. Kind of. He’s spent a lot of time looking at Phil’s face and listening to his voice and he knows that there’s no chance he’ll meet Phil and think, _never mind_. He doesn’t have to be ready to put it into words to be sure that it’s real and it’s not going anywhere. He’d been sure enough to break up with his girlfriend of two years. Not that—maybe that isn’t saying as much as it should be, but he’s surer than that now. 

The real risk is in the other direction, that he could meet Phil and not be able to go back to where he is now. To playing it slightly cool and being okay with ambiguity. Maybe if he met Phil, all of it would be real: not just the crazy fact that he talks to AmazingPhil all the time, not just the feeling of having a true best friend who gets him and supports him, who’s _there_ even when that’s far away. But also the fact that Dan’s heart doesn’t stop at “friends” and what it means about Dan that he’s feeling these things. 

He can say things, online, dance close to the truth. But if he goes— _when_ he goes—to Rawtenstall, he’ll be faced with it all in the flesh. With new ways to be awkward, to get things wrong, with physical space and bodies to worry about. Do they hug? They have to hug, right? Dan’s imagined it, but he could be wrong about how it’ll feel, how Phil hugs, what their comfort level is when all the barriers are stripped away.

What do they even have to talk about? Dan’s used up all his funny stories, and he doesn’t feel like he needs something to say to text Phil, or even on Skype, but what if it’s all different in person? They don’t have history, and maybe their closeness came too fast to have solid roots. What if they’re faced with the fact that they’re not old friends, let alone anything else? They’re just trying to begin to be anything to each other. And if Dan tries for real, then the chance he’ll fail is real too.

Ugh. He wishes he didn’t want to talk to Phil. If he can’t let things just be happy for himself, shouldn’t he at least let them be happy for Phil?

Phil’s status icon is still green; with one click, Dan could call. Or he could swallow his feelings and try to sleep in earnest.

Or…

Before he can think better of it, Dan types out a text. It’s just a text, he doesn’t need an excuse. If Phil’s asleep, he’ll just see it in the morning. He doesn’t mean it, even. He just needs to put the feeling somewhere so he doesn’t keep Phil up with dumb fears that are mostly of himself, of his awkwardness and his feelings, of the way he isn’t who he wants to be and the hope that Phil is exactly who he wants Phil to be.

_the countdown to your disappointment begins_

Dan tells himself he’s not expecting a response. Phil’s supposed to be asleep. It’s fine. He’s fine.

But Phil... damn him for knowing, for clicking the button Dan’s cursor still hovers over. When his face floods the screen, it doesn’t look different. It’s only been, what, ten minutes, twenty? But somehow, it’s a relief. It’s _Phil_ , the same look of cautious concern that he’s seen more times than he’d like but also, that he’s needed almost every time. Or not _needed_ , but it’s helped. It helps. That Phil cares.

Dan’s looking at it now, watching Phil ask him with that tentative, warm worry, “Dan. You know you’re not gonna disappoint me, right?”

Dan looks away, then back. “I bought the tickets. You’re gonna meet me.”

“It’s a good thing, right? ‘Cause I’m excited. But if...”

Dan doesn’t let him finish, can’t let another “if” make cracks in Phil’s excitement. “I’m definitely excited,” he says. He is. A lot of things about Phil are still exciting, maybe most things. Plus the things he doesn’t know yet. Especially those.

And Phil… Phil wants him to come to Manchester. Phil wants to buy him Starbucks and show him around and Phil feels _something_ , whether or not it’s what Dan feels. And that makes Dan feel a lot more things, fluttery things, unnameable things, a whole spectrum between excitement and fear.

“But I’m also...” Dan doesn’t know why he’s still talking. Can’t he ever just be positive? Excited, full stop. But it’s too late now. Phil is looking at him, wide-eyed and waiting, and Dan has to look away. His voice shrinks. “I’m a little terrified.”

There it is. It was bound to happen eventually, really; Dan’s not good at keeping his feelings to himself. And he can explain. Phil will get it. Phil always gets him, right? Dan’s said far worse. And they’ve been okay. They’ve been a whole lot better than okay.

“Me too.” 

He’s not even really paying attention, but Phil’s words break through. Dan turns, startled, and fails at avoiding those eyes. It’s not like he hadn’t thought it, that it might not be any simpler for Phil than it is for him. But it doesn’t feel so dark now; it just _is_. It sounds so simple when it’s just words. Hanging in the air, words and hope and fear. “Yeah?” he whispers.

“But I think,” Phil continues, “that’s how I know it matters.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://templeofshame.tumblr.com/post/181957248885/the-places-where-the-internet-could-not-go-g-19k).


End file.
